Wilkes, who has already visited Illinois officially, and has upcoming officials set with Xavier, Indiana, and Connecticut, said the coaching staff really impressed him while he was out in Westwood.

“I thought I had a good meeting with all of them,” said Wilkes. “They tell me that I’ll be a key piece to a championship team if I went there. They told me to keep playing hard, and if I do that I could go to the next level if I went there. They also stressed how I could go against NBA players over the summer and things like that.”

One thing that is unique for UCLA in this battle is that Wilkes is far more familiar with the Midwestern schools, and places with that atmosphere. Clearly things are different in Los Angeles, and Wilkes was impressed with the atmosphere of the West Coast.

“I think it is more of a low key cool atmosphere,” noted Wilkes. “There are so many big time people out there. I think it is also a great school and a winning school. They seem like they really want to win, and bring UCLA back to being the preeminent program in college basketball.”

Up next for Wilkes is a scheduled trip to Indiana. Wilkes has been down to Bloomington to visit the Hoosiers program numerous times since eighth grade, but now he is looking for the Hoosiers to match the quality experiences he has had at Illinois and UCLA.

“I just want to see the same thing that I saw on the previous two visits,” said Wilkes. “I want to see everything that Indiana has. The other two were really good visits and I am sure this one will go well also. I want to see how I get along with the players and everything like that.”

Wilkes insists he plans to make all of his visits before deciding, and has been adamant that he will decide following his final visit.